All Time

Thursday, April 20, 2017

[BERLIN] Caught Ticketless on the Tram

There are days when you just
know that the universe is shitting you. Today is one of those days. For those
who are not accustomed to how public transportation works here in Central
Europe, let me give you a brief orientation. You can ride the subway here in
Berlin without having to pay anything. You see, there are no turnstiles or
gates preventing you from going to the platforms. If you are from Manila, this
is downright strange. After a few weeks of residence here, though, you just get
used to this trust system.

In theory, you have to pay for
your fare. For us language students, the norm is having what they call a
Monatskarte or a “Month Card” in English. This card costs EUR81 (~PHP4,400) and
is valid for Berlin’s AB zone for a month, where most of the places you need to
visit should be unless you reside in Zone C, which requires an extra extension
ticket. This fucking ticket lives inside my wallet, two of them, in fact: one
for March and one for April. Today, the ticket decided not to be in my wallet
for whatever reason. Hooray.

For the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn,
being a Schwarzfahrer (lit: black traveler = travelling without a valid ticket)
is rather easy. With the many cars a train has, you can literally play hide and
seek with an inspector, if ever you are so unlucky to stumble upon one. On the
bus, you have to flash the ticket to the driver, but sometimes they are too
lazy to care. The tram is almost similar to the U-Bahn/S-Bahn, except that it
has less cars so escaping is a little bit more difficult. Are you feeling
adventurous today?

But why do you need a ticket
if there are no barriers anyway? Well, there are random inspectors wearing
civilian clothes roaming around. If you are just here for a short period of
time, the probability of meeting one is very rare. I actually think of them as
unicorns or urban legends. People talk about them from time to time but you
just can’t verify their existence, until they surprise you one day and slap you
with a EUR60 (~PHP3,300) fine. Today on the tram, I got bitchslapped with that
fucking fine. Bad day.

I already saw that lady
inspector two days ago on the same tram, a few feet away from me. I actually
got excited. I wanted to approach her and voluntarily have my ticket inspected
so I would feel righteous following the law. But then again I already needed to
alight the tram because the trip was rather short with just two stops. Today
when I saw her again I knew this was going to be the day. Inspect me! Inspect
me! As she came closer, I withdrew my wallet from my jeans’ pocket. The ticket
wasn’t there.

She told me that I had the
right to remain silent. I then cocked my head to the side and told her that she
can’t arrest me. I have connections, biatch. I am friends with the ex of Angela
Merkel’s cousin’s babysitter on Facebook, and Gerard Schroeder and I go to the
same Imbiss for Currywurst. She was having none of it. She then handcuffed me
and shoved me to the tram wall. Little children began to cry and the elderly
were praying, pleading her to stop the violence. And then it rained as I
shouted NOOOOO to the heavens.

Nah, I think that scenario
only happens in soap operas. What happened is that she demanded to see my
passport as I double, triple, and quadruple checked that particular wallet
sleeve where the effing ticket was supposed to be. All around us, the other
passengers were probably judging me in silence. Take a video, guys. Upload it
on YouTube. I’m a certified attention whore. She then filled out a money
transfer form, wrote 04.05.17 as the deadline on another form, and issued some
sort of receipt amounting to EUR60.

No, you don’t have to pay the
amount upfront. She instructed me to go to a BVG office close to where I
reside. In this case, that’ll be Jannowitzbruecke. This happened at 9 AM so my
mood for the entire day was already ruined. I was so stressed out that after class I
had to go straight to the Chinese resto I frequent to overdose on rice. Because
rice is life. And when the world is shitting you, you only have to eat rice and
everything will be okay, right? Right? I then went home to confront the
Monatskarte on my desk.

But the Monatskarte wasn’t
there. Fuck my life? The last time I remember pulling it out from my wallet was
Sunday afternoon when I showed it to a friend in Aachen as we were on a bus
going back home from Vaals. And then that same Sunday, I recall flashing it to
the 165 bus driver on the way home to Kreuzberg. I then remember how it wouldn’t
completely go inside the wallet sleeve because my passport photos in the same
sleeve were blocking the way. I no longer recall what happened after that.

Did I accidentally drop it on
my seat while on the bus? If I didn’t, force of habit tells me that I would
have just placed it with the Aachen Einzeltickets unsecured on top of the
credit cards. When I got back home that night I brushed off all those tickets
and random receipts to the desk, which is why I was expecting to see the
Monatskarte there in the mix. Oh isn’t it annoying buying something for a
certain reason and not having it when the need for it finally arises? Or maybe
this is just the universe's way of mugging me?Fuck?

What annoys me now is that I
still have a week left here in Berlin. Now I will have to buy a weekly ticket for
EUR30 (~PHP1,500) on top of that EUR60 (~PHP3,300) fine on top of the EUR81 (~PHP4,400) I paid for that
fucking Monatskarte, wherever the fuck it is. Anyway, I will go to the BVG office
tomorrow to pay the damn fine. Online anecdotes say that the amount rises after
two weeks. Some people argue that it’s not a fine but rather a more expensive
ticket offered by the BVG in lieu of pursuing a court case. Is it a criminal offense then?

I have no idea. People who
argue about the issue online have mixed sentiments and info. All I know is that
this won’t be my last time in Berlin. I still have a long way to go to up my
German proficiency level. I’ll definitely be back here in Germany, and I don’t
want any hassles when that time comes. I guess this is why I prefer a metro
system with barriers. At least there is no room for not paying a ticket unless
you intentionally choose to do so. Oh well, enough rants. Life goes on,
EUR60+EUR30 poorer. FML?